> Kate quotes her query:
>
> "Can you explain what you think the boundary between seeing a thing and
> understanding what it is and how clear that boundary is?"
> >
> Cheerskep replied(at last) ["At last"? Immediately! -- Cheerskep]:
>
> "I don't clearly "understand" Kate's notion of "boundary" but I'll try
> this: When we receive raw sense data -- in, say, the form of a vision or
> sound -- there is a millisecond before the first association arises in our
> mind. The line between those two may be considered the "boundary" between
> "seeing" and (to a degree) "understanding"."
>
> To which Kate responded:
>
> "Sometimes being able to talk fast isn't always good. Apparently you go
> straight to cultural associations and skip the moment of seeing where parts
> of things assume their shape."
>
'Parts of things' is a bit too ambiguous for me to get a sure handhold on,
but maybe this is to the point:
We receive sense data, and the only way we "make sense of it" is by summoning
up associations with that "input". Those associations are notions formed
during our past experience (including "learning" in school or by reading books
and
dictionaries). There ARE the "cultural" associations we all variously harbor.
A child's initial inventory of associations is almost nil. But eventually it
accumulates enough aural experience where, say, the sound "Daddy" calls to
mind the vision of the guy who needs a shave . Some people will claim the baby
eventually comes to "understand" what the sound "Daddy" "means".
So I suggested the "boundary" -- Kate's word -- between the raw sense data
and "understanding" it, could, to a degree, be accepted as the instant
between
the arrival of the sense-data sound and the first association. (Guaranteed:
The baby will never come to what I'd agree to call fully "understanding" his
Daddy. Remember 'understanding' is Kate's word, not mine. Every time I think
of varieties of what might be called "understanding", I think of it as a matter
of degree.) If the baby has no accumulated association with the sound, he'll
draw as much of a blank as I probably would if I heard a word in Mongolian.
It's true that babies have "instinctive" reactions to external stimulations,
reactions they are apparently born with. Take away a baby's physical support
and she starts to fall, she will cry out. Maybe that's one. Why that elicits
discomfort even though she's never actually fallen is a matter of dispute, I
assume. But the association between the utterance "Daddy" and that particular
unshaven face isn't instinctive. It's learned. And when it's Mommy whose face
heaves up, the association probably comes to be, "Ah! Dinner's coming!"
I'd guess some listers, when they read Kate's phrase, "the moment of seeing
where parts of things assume their shape", will immediately find themselves
with a notion of their own. They'll say, "Hey, I know what she means!" No they
don't. All they "know" are the (various) notions that came to their minds.
So while try to piece together a notion based on that phrase, I realize
there's a good chance it will be nothing like what Kate had in mind.
I'll begin by changing some wording to say, "BEGIN to assume their shape").
Much of notion tends to be cumulative. Then I'll try this. Let's say we get a
quick glimpse of the back of a head in a crowd. It "reminds" us of George. A
flood of associations with George rush to mind. We chase the guy and discover
it's not George after all.
That moment, when raw sense data summon up associations, is an answer that
comes to my mind in response to Kate's question, "What's the boundary between
sense data and (some sort of) understanding".
But Kate disapproves of this thinking. "Apparently you go straight to
cultural associations and skip the moment of seeing where parts of things
assume
their shape." I'm saying that my notion of "shape" here is the bundle of
associations that help me interpret the sense data, "make sense" of it. If Kate
means
by "shape" the vision of the back of that head in the crowd, then my response
is that visual sense data ARRIVES in a shape. My basic ploint is that without a
bank of association, and this lump of links in our heads that first
"receives" and throws it up on our inner screen, and then scurries about
pulling up
associations, the sense data would be all but worthless to us.
If a lister should now complain that all this rumination seems rambling and
fruitless, I will heartily agree. And I will claim it's fruitless because the
original terms were too ambiguous, vague, general, "fuzzy". I would hope the
same lister would not simultaneously criticise my ongoing policy of pushing for
as much initial clarification of terms and notion as can be provided.
Kate naughtily goes on:
> "This is probably why you have
> trouble with cell phones, wondering if those
> things with numbers are buttons."
>
I don't have trouble with them. I simply don't own one. If I did, I
confidently believe I could learn how to work them (though, speaking of
"understanding", not WHY they work, which I'm certain Kate doesn't know
either). What the
hell, we have a complicated alleged "state-of-the-art" Blu Ray tv with three
required remotes, and whenever one of the housekeepers hits the wrong button
they
come running to me and I get it running again. I know I then look a lot more
knowledgeable than I am, prompting me to feel unjustifiably smug.
>
**************
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